Recent advances of ratiometric sensors in food matrices: mycotoxins detection

Abstract

The public health problem caused by mycotoxins contamination has received a great deal of attention worldwide. Mycotoxins produced by filamentous fungi widely distributed in foodstuffs can cause adverse impacts on humans and livestock, posing serious health threats. Particularly worth mentioning is that mycotoxins can accumulate in organisms and be enriched through the food chain. Improving early trace detection and control from the source is a more desirable approach than the contaminated food disposal process to ensure food safety. Conventional sensors are susceptible to interference from various components in intricate food matrices when detecting trace mycotoxins. The application of ratiometric sensors avoids signal fluctuations, and reduce background influences, which casts new light on developing sensors with superior performance. This work is the first to provide an overview of the recent progress of ratiometric sensors in the detection of mycotoxins in intricate food matrices, and highlight the output types of ratiometric signal with respect to accurate quantitative analysis. The prospects of this field are also included in this paper and are intended to have key ramifications on the development of sensing detection conducive to food safety.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Mycotoxins
• food safety
• ratiometric analysis
• sensors
• detection technology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Postgraduate Research & Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province (KYCX21_0163, SJCX22_0077).

Notes on contributors

Chunyang Jing

Chunyang Jing, master candidate, School of Public Health, Southeast University, 2021, whose research direction is the development of electrochemical biosensors related to food safety.

Liangrui Lv

Liangrui Lv is currently pursuing a Doctor degree at Southeast University, China. Her research interests are in nanomaterials synthesis and the mycotoxin electrochemical analysis.

Xiaoying Wang

Xiaoying Wang, Associate professor, doctoral supervisor, School of Public Health, Southeast University. Mainly engaged in biosensing and risk assessment of disease-related markers, food safety, environmental pollution related nano-electrical analysis and detection research.